Method for editing and enhancing readability of authored documents

• US 7,313,513 B2
• Filed: 05/13/2003
• Issued: 12/25/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: WordRake, LLC
• Original Assignee: WordRake, LLC
• Inventors: Kinder, Gary
• Primary Examiner(s): Hudspeth; David
• Assistant Examiner(s): Sked; Matthew J
• Application Number:
  US10/438,083
• Publication Number:
  US 20030212541A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,687 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 704/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/20 Natural language analysis semantic analysis of natural language G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/253 Grammatical analysis; Style critique
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/279 Recognition of textual entities

Abstract

Various methods are disclosed for improving the readability of authored documents. The methods generally involve scanning a sentence to check for specific signs of potential writing problems, and applying associated sign-dependent decision logic to assess whether particular writing problems exist. The methods may be implemented in a computer program that makes editing suggestions to a user and/or makes edits automatically. The program may, in some cases, dim unnecessary language to reveal how the sentence will read with such language removed.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of improving the human readability of a sentence, the method comprising:

scanning the sentence for each of a plurality of signs, each sign signifying a possible occurrence of unnecessary text in the sentence or text that can be improved, said sentence being grammatically correct;

detecting, as a result of said scanning, an occurrence in the sentence of a first sign of said plurality of signs; and

in response to detecting the occurrence of the first sign, applying sign-dependent logic to the sentence to assess whether the sentence includes unnecessary text that can be removed, or text that can be improved, to enhance the human readability of the sentence, said sign-dependent logic including a check for typically unnecessary phrases containing the first sign, wherein different sign-dependent logic is used for different ones of said signs;

wherein the method is performed by computer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of signs includes the following words:

“

it,”

“

there,”

“

in,”

“

of,”

“

as,”

“

or,” and

“

that.”

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the sign is a period, and the step of applying the sign-dependent logic comprises programmatically analyzing a group of words immediately preceding a period at the end of the sentence to assess whether the sentence includes an unnecessary prepositional phrase.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising, in response to determining that the sentence includes unnecessary text, interacting with a user to determine whether the unnecessary text should be removed.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising, in response to determining that the sentence includes unnecessary text, visually marking the unnecessary text in a computer display of the sentence.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein visually marking the unnecessary text comprises dimming the unnecessary text in the computer display.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein visually marking the unnecessary text comprises diminishing an intensity of the unnecessary text to reveal how a corresponding sentence reads without the unnecessary text.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying, in association with the occurrence of the first sign, explanatory text that reveals a meaning of the first sign.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first sign is the word “

it.”

10. The method of claim 9, wherein applying the sign-dependent logic comprises determining whether the occurrence of “

it”

appears as a pronoun, and when the occurrence of “

it”

is not used as a pronoun, checking the sentence for a plurality of unnecessary phrases containing the word “

it.”

11. The method of claim 9, wherein applying the sign-dependent logic for “

it”

comprises searching for an occurrence of “

that”

in a group of words following the occurrence of “

it.”

12. The method of claim 11, wherein applying the sign-dependent logic further comprises, in response to detecting an occurrence of “

that”

in said group of words, deleting from the sentence a phrase that starts with “

it,”

ends with “

that,” and

includes one or more words in between.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the first sign is the word “

there.”

14. The method of claim 13, wherein applying the sign-dependent logic for “

there”

comprises searching the sentence for an occurrence of “

that”

after the occurrence of “

there.”

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the first sign is the word “

in.”

16. The method of claim 15, wherein applying the sign-dependent logic for “

in”

comprises determining whether the occurrence of “

in”

is part of a predetermined phrase that can be removed, and when the occurrence is not part of a predetermined phrase that can be removed, interacting with a user to determine whether a prepositional phrase beginning with “

in”

can be removed.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the first sign is the word “

of.”

18. The method of claim 17, wherein applying the sign-dependent logic for “

of”

comprises determining whether the sentence includes a nominalization that can be converted to a verb.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the first sign is the word “

as.”

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the first sign is the word “

or.”

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the first sign is the word “

that.”

22. A computer program that embodies the method of claim 1, said computer program stored on a computer-readable medium.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the method comprises applying the sign-dependent logic associated with each sign only if the respective sign is present in the sentence, such that unnecessary processing is avoided.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein applying the sign-dependent logic comprises moving text within the sentence to improve the human readability of the sentence.

25. A computer-implemented method of assessing the readability of a sentence, comprising:

scanning the sentence for each of a plurality of “

to be”

verbs;

detecting, as a result of said scanning, an occurrence of a “

to be”

verb in the sentence; and

assessing whether the occurrence of the “

to be”

verb signifies the presence of passive voice;

wherein assessing whether the occurrence of the “

to be”

verb signifies the presence of passive voice comprises checking each of two words immediately following the occurrence of the “

to be”

verb to determine whether either of said two words is a strong verb;

and wherein the method is performed by computer.

26. The computer-implemented method of claim 25, wherein the plurality of “

to be”

verbs consists of the following;

am, is, was, were, are, been, be.

27. The computer-implemented method of claim 25, wherein the occurrence of the “

to be”

verb is an occurrence of one of the following;

am, is, was, were, are, been, be.

28. The computer-implemented method of claim 25, further comprising the computer-implemented steps of:

determining that one of said two words is a strong verb; and

determining whether an object of the strong verb is included in the sentence prior to the strong verb.

29. The computer-implemented method of claim 28, further comprising programmatically generating a revised version of the sentence with passive voice eliminated.

30. The computer-implemented method of claim 25, further comprising, in response to determining that neither of the two words immediately following the occurrence of the “

to be”

verb is a strong verb, determining whether the occurrence of the “

to be”

verb signifies a presence of a nominalization that can be eliminated to improve the readability of the sentence.

31. The computer-implemented method of claim 30, further comprising, in response to determining that the occurrence of the “

to be”

verb signifies the presence of a nominalization, automatically revising the sentence to convert the nominalization to a verb.

32. A computer program that embodies the method of claim 25 stored on a computer-readable medium.

33. The method of claim 25, further comprising, when the occurrence of the “

to be”

verb is determined to signify the presence of passive voice, interacting with a user to determine whether the passive voice should be converted to active voice.

34. A computer-implemented method of assessing the readability of a sentence, comprising, via execution of a computer program:

scanning the sentence for one of a plurality of prepositions, said sentence being grammatically correct;

detecting, as a result of said scanning, an occurrence of a preposition;

determining whether the occurrence of the preposition immediately follows a verb;

if the occurrence of the preposition does not immediately follow a verb, interacting with a user of the computer program to determine whether the occurrence of the preposition is part of a prepositional phrase that can be removed from the sentence to improve human readability.

35. The computer-implemented method of claim 34, wherein interacting with the user comprises changing an appearance of a sequence of words beginning with the preposition to reveal to the user how the sentence reads without the sequence of words.

36. The computer-implemented method of claim 34, wherein scanning the sentence for one of a plurality of prepositions comprises excluding the prepositions “

in” and

“

of.”

37. A computer program that embodies the method of claim 34 stored on a computer-readable medium.

38. A computerized method of assessing the readability of a sentence, comprising:

scanning the sentence to identify a sequence of four or more words that are separated by two commas;

altering an appearance of the sequence of four or more words in a computerized display of the sentence; and

determining whether the sequence of four or more words should be removed from the sentence to improve the sentence'"'"'s readability.

39. The computerized method of claim 38, wherein altering the appearance comprises dimming the sequence of words.

40. The computerized method of claim 38, wherein determining whether the sequence of words should be removed comprises assessing whether the sentence will lose its meaning if the sequence of words is removed.

41. The computerized method of claim 38, wherein determining whether the sequence of words should be removed comprises programmatically interacting with a user.

42. The computerized method of claim 38, further comprising, in response to determining that the sequence of words should not be removed, moving the sequence of words to the beginning of the sentence.

43. A computerized method of assessing the readability of a sentence, comprising:

scanning the sentence to detect an occurrence of the word “

any”

;

determining whether the occurrence of the word “

any”

immediately follows a negated verb;

in response to detecting that the occurrence of “

any”

follows a negated verb, revising the sentence by making the negated verb positive, negating an object of the verb, and deleting the occurrence of “

any”

.

44. A computerized method of improving the human readability of a sentence, the method comprising:

detecting an occurrence of a potentially unnecessary word or phrase in a sentence; and

dimming the occurrence of the potentially unnecessary word or phrase in a computerized display of the sentence to reveal to a user how the sentence reads without the potentially unnecessary word or phrase.

45. The method of claim 44, wherein detecting the occurrence of the potentially unnecessary word or phrase comprises detecting an occurrence of a sign in the sentence, and in response to detecting the occurrence of the sign, applying sign-specific decision logic to the sentence to check for potentially unnecessary language.

46. The method of claim 45, wherein the sign is one of the following words:

“

it,”

“

there,”

“

in,”

“

of,”

“

as,”

“

or,”

“

that,”

or a period.

47. The method of claim 44, wherein the sentence is grammatically correct, and the method further comprises interacting with the user to determine whether the potentially unnecessary word or phrase should be removed.